Science education has been in the spotlight after federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne recently proposed to make science and maths education compulsory through to year 12.

While this is welcome news, such a proposal needs to include long-term plans for improving the status of science in primary schools and ensuring teachers have the requisite support. Here we outline some of the challenges faced as the new science curriculum is implemented across the country.

The Australian curriculum is not a ‘national curriculum’

Many people in education are somewhat bemused that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s Australian Curriculum is not national.

Primary Connections does provide a wealth of ideas, activities, background knowledge and safety considerations. However, it also has several issues.

While Primary Connections is free to all schools via the online platform Scootle, many schools are still spending money to get it via the Primary Connections website, to which the Australian Academy of Science website points all those interested.

Primary Connections is essentially just a bunch of PDFs, which is a long way from an inspiring instructive for teachers to get kids interested in science.

Many schools are also implementing Primary Connections in its entirety, which might not be consistent with their state or territory requirements. This will not allow for a personalised journey into scientific inquiry.

In some states, relying solely on Primary Connections would make a school non-compliant with the requirements of the state syllabus. For example, Primary Connections does not cater for the technology knowledge and skills in the NSW syllabus.

Science is a high-anxiety, low-confidence subject for many primary teachers

As a primary school teacher once told us, “primary teachers are expert generalists”. Most lack the training and experience to teach science, and a deep understanding of the subject and experimentation. Many feel under-confident in science.

While mathematics is assessed in NAPLAN, there is currently no comprehensive national assessment of science. Thus, despite (or perhaps because of) the new emphasis on science, science is at risk of being the new sacrificial lamb of choice.

NSW mandates that 6-10% of curriculum time is spent on science in primary schools – that’s 1.5 to 2.5 hours a week. There is substantial variation in the time devoted to science across states and schools. Many schools are operating on only one hour a week, which could easily become 45 minutes when you factor in “pack-up time” at the end of the day and other interruptions.

Second, in a large primary school, only one science specialist would not be enough. They would not be able to get to every class for the recommended curriculum time. Teaching science, as with any subject, is the responsibility of all primary teachers. With science being somewhat neglected historically in pre-service training, how are we going to train up all of the incumbents?

There are some wonderful primary teachers out there who openly admit they need help with teaching science. However, national, state and school structures currently conspire to make this more difficult and less enjoyable than it should be.